What it is, what to hear first, and what sits next to it.
Blackgaze is a mixture of black metal aesthetics with more dreamy and mellow textures. One of the main characteristics of the genre are tremolo picking riffs creating an ethereal wall of sound, which is softer than usual black metal and resembling shoegaze (hence the name). Other common features are rapid blast beats and shrieking vocals, often interchanging with slower sections, clean singing and acoustic or post-rock-like instrumental breaks. Blackgaze .